Insimenator.org

I noticed that I couldn't create more than one playable family/household/sim to live in the same town. So is this just because of me, or is it something about the game? And if more than one sim-family/household can actually live in the same town, please tell me how to make that work.

you must hit edit town and save, when it gos to the neighborhood screen you'll see a small button with two houses hit that and it will allow you to change the active sim. The game will erase any items your sims have in their inventory though and all plants will have disappeared.

I managed to retain my sim's inventory, points, skills, etc., but I did it through merging. 

I went into a save file, clicked Edit Town, picked a family from the Family Bin, selected "place copy" for the sim that I wanted to move my skilled one in with, moved them onto a lot, and merged the two families (moved my skilled teen into the other sim's home and left the adult in the other house). 

I moved the teen, her new guardian, and their home into the Lots & Houses bin, and returned to my current game.  Saved, returned to the Main Menu, and selected New Game.  Went back to the Lots & Houses bin to find my family's house, set them up on a property, and entered their lot.  Teen retained all of her skills and points.  Saved the file under a new name and quit.  Convoluted, yes, but she still has all of her points and inventory stuff ;D.

Thank you for replying.